A Perishing Lament

Greville and the Tombstones are not very good at Halloween. But this little one seems appropriate for reading on a Halloween night. Listen and you might hear it through the wind, through the window, through the wall, through to morning.

This is:
A Perishing Lament

It’s not what fleshes our costumes.

It’s not the glow of a lantern,

flickering a face through a windowpane.

It’s a peculiarity which consumes.

A gothic, sloshing, formed within.

It’s an invisible foreboding without name.

It’s joining in a parlour game,

All silk dresses, paraffin lights and warm. 

And sensing not all is tomfoolery intent,

Disguised by cinder toffee scent.  

And the spirit moves on from you. 

And the spirit moves on

Because of what you have done.  

Watching players all sat in the round.

The Medium’s fingers of reed,

Flickering in refined ethereal breeze.

Listening out for your mortal sound.

The channelling is meant to mislead.

The panting in breasts as breaths freeze.

We’re joining your parlour game.

All creaks, knocks and earie manifest.

And moaning out eternal undying torment,

It’s a perishing lament.

And the spirit does rest with you.

And the spirit does rest

Because of what you have done.

S-booky decorations

Composition and photo by @tellthee

Wishing everyone a very spooky Halloween.

Terminal agitation

I wrote this fast in a bath. Greville and the Tombstones appear to take the most melodramatic baths.

This is:
Terminal agitation

I cling to the side of the pool.

My naked body in supine pose of the tormented Jesus.

Knuckles grooved rivets.

A fleshy sac: loose yolk exposed.

My modesty slapped in oil.  

I consider dying.  

It's been two summers.

It’s been so much longer now.  

I wanted ovations.

Men punching the air.

Women falling into arms.

To be beautiful forever.

I wanted certification of life.  

I consider dying.  

I’ll not find ways back.

I’m alright with how I am now.  

Blood lacerated in the dance.

My hair, slippery and lank from the steaming pool.

Hanging willow branches.

Creating little concentric ripples.

Vulnerability coiling fingers.

I consider the pain.

A hymn for a nihilist

This was an interesting piece. I tweeted a couple of early drafts as I worked on it. Then it disappeared, deep into the well. Now it has resurfaced, the stones out its pockets. It is much changed. It went in a therapy and came out a hymn.

This is: A hymn for a nihilist

Wipe clean your eyeball on a sleeve,

This is not a benediction for your strife.

Pick up this note of mourning on cold days.

Days when skies are nicotine yellow lit life.

You could be happier, I’d say.  

What claims victory in war,

when you’re only fighting yourself?

What case are you trying to prove,

when you prosecute your own defence?

You want to watch some drown,

but to do it you must wade deeper in.

Don’t pierce that voodoo doll of yours,

you’ll only prick a finger with the pin.  

Young romantics, youthful dead.

Though who can truly tell the difference?

The trophy on an arm and another

skeleton cluttering the cupboard.

Rattling bones hush the screams.

Out of car windows, Time discards you

like empty tins, rattling on the road.

Seeing the car get small, you’re cut free.  

Velvet, burst stuffed heart cushion.

Dead fragile, vein thin leaf smoked pew.

Wallpaper peeling from humid stress,

Everything needs a redecoration.

Every bit moulders in ruins.

It’s complicated and it’s ridiculous

how decomposition is natural.

Come to terms with whatever the point is.

The perished, holly berry mildew,

worn out as a coat that really suits you.  

Years poured in, paper thin.

All the people are junkyards,

corrugated dolphin companions in the surf.

Wipe clean your other eyeball on a sleeve,

See through your ghosts giving up.

Wring out the excruciating tone.

View terror under grief within.

Creep towards The Word like medication,

Take it anytime, whatever dose,

It won’t cure your mortal bone.  

God, how did you get so old?

Trauma keeps from feeling the years.

Stolen act of misguided kindness.

I sense works growing cold in my warm core.

Watching tornadoes touch down on the ocean floor

make it worthwhile to endure.

Is this good therapy? I’m really, very, not so sure.

There is no Live album

There is no band. There is no Live.

Many thanks to my friend @tellthee for this great image and design.

It's so realistic. But it is not a real album. Like all Greville and The Tombstones albums, if they did exist, they would be blank. Not even any grooves in the vinyl, I would think.